[GU]elmur_fud;2609428 said:
With the exception of earlier semi failed processors like the Alpha, AMD broke the 64-bit processor onto the market 10+ years ago. Intel had to license the x64 architecture. (ironic role-reversal ftw).
Nobody said this wasn't the case. Who are you arguing with? Intel adopted 64-bit instruction sets
after AMD's Opteron, hence the example.
[GU]elmur_fud;2609428 said:
Both AMD and intel are able to run 32-bit instruction on 64-bit processors. So neither haver technically stopped making 32-bit.
Nobody said this wasn't the case either, but the hardware is
not 32-bit. The 64-bit instruction set is a superset of the original 32-bit set, so old instructions can still be used without issue. This is more or less just semantics...
[GU]elmur_fud;2609428 said:
Steam users are hardly a benchmark for judging hardware standards
If you have a better resource for judging hardware standards amongst PC gamers, I'm all ears. Noone ever said it was infallible, but I doubt you have a better or more representative source.
[GU]elmur_fud;2609428 said:
My OS is 32-bit because I use certain legacy apps that don't operate well on a 64-bit OS
You're an exception, not the rule. I'm expecting games to increasingly drop 32-bit clients over the coming few years, as they're going to start using more than 2GB (or even 3GB) of memory, which 32-bit operating systems won't reliably address.
Whoever compiled this version of the build probably didn't bother building a 32-bit binary, if there's a build configuration to do so. All developers will be running 64-bit operating systems, because the SDK requires it. The public releases will probably have a 32-bit binary.